What Do You Mean, My Driving Scares You? (A Tale of Woe + a TIRE Giveaway!!!)

I was, I think, 15 or 16 when I first got behind the wheel. It's blurry to me - mostly because I'm old, but also I always block out times when someone is yelling at me.

Ahem, DAD, I'm looking at you.

I don't remember the car I learned to drive on. What I do remember is that my dad loves to tell tales, and his favorite is that he could read the mail inside the mailboxes when I was driving. Whatever, sir. I think you just couldn't stand that I was in the driver's seat. SOME people hate to give up control.

Well, that, and the fact that I may or may not have had a habit of driving with my left foot out the driver's window. (In my defense - I don't do that anymore.)

My first car, the one that was all my own, was an 1976 Ford Pinto. (I don't know why my parents didn't love me. It wasn't until later that I heard that the 1976 Ford Pinto was RECALLED because the gas tank had a habit of, you know, exploding.) My dad was a home mechanic, and he worked an awful lot on that car - one of the first things he had to do was give me a manual clutch, and I had to learn the fine art of accelerating just enough at the same time as I slowly pulled that lever out, and hoped that there was no one behind me trying to go faster than, oh, 25 or so.

This isn't my car - but it looked just like this, although in much worse condition:

I loved that car. Maybe I didn't have much choice, and maybe it was nothing to look at - with a basic AM/FM radio, no seatbelts in the back seat, and a great big rust spot underneath the driver's side floor mat - yeah, the seller was really slick and tossed new floor mats in there, and I didn't discover the rust spot until my foot went straight through one day as I sat at a stop light - but, you know what? It was mine and that car and I, we went everywhere together. I moved out as soon as I graduated, and that car was my ticket to freedom.

Fast forward many (really, yeah, several decades) and I'm in the process of teaching my fourth kid to drive. It's a task that my husband and I take seriously, although we both have varying teaching styles. Different kids respond differently to each of us, and this current kid has been more my task than my husband's. (I dunno, my kid says I yell less and he'd rather drive with me... maybe that has something to do with it?)

I live in the same city where, long ago, my dad took me out to drive, and I've taken my son on some of those same old roads lately. Really, the old roads are the best, full of twists and curves and ditches and oncoming traffic - and yeah, mailboxes. Recently, I've gotten the chance to see, up close and personal, the mail that some of those people put out. Never mind the fact that my dad said that about me - I know it wasn't true then, but man, does my kid cut it close sometimes!

I may or may not have grabbed the wheel when he made a U turn the other day - in my defense, there's no need to swing wide right to U turn left!

Keeping kids safe when they learn to drive is the goal, but it's not always a welcome goal for them. After all, teenagers think that they are invincible, especially when they get behind the wheel. They smell the freedom on the horizon and they just canNOT wait. You can talk car safety, tire safety, no cell phone use, drinking and driving ad nauseam - and all they hear is FREEEEEEDOM!!!

And the ability to control the musical selection. That's primo, right there.

But along with teaching your kids to tie their shoes, brush their teeth, eat their broccoli and be mindful of the social footprint they leave - it's also your responsibility, as a parent, to make sure you teach them driving safety.

Facts you (and your teen drivers) should know:

The time between Memorial Day and Labor Day is often referred to as the "100 Deadliest Days" for teen drivers, based on accident data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and National Safety Council.

Automobile accidents are the number one killer of teens in America. That's 5,000 deaths annually.

12% of the 2.2 million auto accidents each year with inexperienced drivers are due to tire-related issues. That's 264,000 tire-related crashes.

26% of tire-related accidents are attributed to low tread depth, which can lead to less traction on the road; 32% of tire-related accidents are attributed to improper tire pressure.

Checking your tire pressure monthly and learning the proper way to check tread depth are two easy tasks that can help you correctly maintain your tires and contribute to overall vehicle safety. Learn how to check tire tread and air pressure.

MICHELIN® is a tire manufacturer that has focused on road safety for over 125 years. The #FirstCarMoment campaign is an extension of their larger effort to increase awareness of road safety, and this post is part of that campaign. To learn more about this campaign, visit Michelin Man on YouTube.

And now for a giveaway: new tires!

MICHELIN® Premier® LTX® tires provide exceptional levels of safety even as tires wear down, making them "safe when new and safe when worn." Even when worn, the MICHELIN® Premier® LTX® still stops shorter on wet roads than leading competitors’ new tires. The MICHELIN® Premier® LTX® tire combines hidden grooves that emerge as the tire wears, expanding rain grooves that widen over time to continue to evacuate water and a unique rubber compound for increased wet grip, resulting in prolonged safety and performance for vehicle owners in a range of weather conditions. Note: MICHELIN® will work with winners to identify the appropriate tire size and availability of tires for their vehicle and ship them to their preferred address; if MICHELIN® Premier® LTX® tires are not available for your car, the next best tire option will be determined and provided.

To enter for a chance to win this giveaway, answer the following question in the comments below: When it comes to road/car safety, what do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started driving?

{Disclosure: A set of tires for giveaway and compensation were provided for this post by MICHELIN® as part of a partnership with SheKnows. All opinions are my own.}

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This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older (or nineteen (19) years of age or older in Alabama and Nebraska). Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. The notification email will come directly from BlogHer via the sweeps@blogher email address. You will have 2 business days to respond; otherwise a new winner will be selected.

I wish I had known that you should just go ahead and hit the skunk that's in the middle of the road rather than trying to swerve around it because he WILL spray all his skunk spray all over your car anyway AND you will end up sideways in the ditch. Not that I know this from experience. :)

I wish I had known that you must look in front of you when merging onto a highway for the people that don't know how to merge at all and stop. I bumped a car and luckily no one was hurt nn ot even the car. I learned also to do my best to stay moving on a merge. Sooooo many people have no clue! My little Altima would love some fresh wheels!

What I know now that I wish I knew when I started driving is that you can't count on other drivers being safe, skilled or smart. Now that I know to drive defensively and to expect bad drivers, I'm safer and less stressed/surprised.

I wish I known the importance of seatbelt safety. I was in a bad car wreck with my boyfriend his best friend and another girls shortly after high school graduation years ago and I still suffer from neck pain due to my injuries.

When it comes to road/car safety, I'd love to go back in time and tell myself and my darling daughter to ALWAYS wear your seatbelt (properly) across your lap and chest and to get in the habit buckle it up before you turn the car on; turn off your phone when you get in your car; if you have to answer or make a call PULL OVER; carry spare glasses with you; check the tread on your vehicle tires and replace them when necessary; and most importantly don't let darling daughter get in a car on four days in her life. (See below)

Darling daughter was in 4 auto accidents in 18 months - the first was when her then boyfriend was driving back on a logging road, hit gravel, and ran off the road and hit a tree - very slow speed (20 mph-ish), no vehicle damage. However, she had flipped the across the chest strap behind her back and wore only the lap belt and bounced off the windshield. TBI. And her high school junior/senior year was dramatically changed. She ended up not graduating a year early and dropping all the advanced/accelerated courses even with just a month and a half to go. She had to do the senior year in an alternative school for the few classes she had to take to finish. (She did end up still graduating with her classmates instead of a year early.)

Her 2nd auto accident was when she let her (same) boyfriend drive her Mazda (with her in the passenger seat) and a young mom with children didn't see the gray vehicle on a November day, and crossed a 4 lane road and hit them. (Young mom driver was frantic because 1) they were in the middle of one of the busiest roads in town, 2) when she got out to talk to them she closed her doors and they autolocked with her children sitting in the damaged undrivable but running vehicle, 3) she had no insurance and never paid a dime for the damage.)

The 3rd accident was when she was driving back from a dr's appt and a schoolbus (empty except the driver) pulled out of a side alley/street without looking for oncoming traffic and t-boned my minivan. She saw it out of the corner of her eye and hit the gas and it hit the middle of the van instead of the driver's door where she sat.

The 4th(and hopefully last)accident was the day she got insurance on her new to her Subaru station wagon, and drove out to show that same boyfriend's mom the new 4 wheel drive vehicle. Coming back to town, a woman pulled out from a side street, crossed 3 lanes of traffic to hit the Subaru hard enough to turn it 180 degrees to face her boyfriend's mom's truck (she was following her back into town). Totaled the car we'd bought less than 3 days earlier. We wouldn't let her drive it until we had proof of insurance. The impact knocked her glasses off and she was standing blind beside her backward turned demolished car in evening rush hour traffic on US Hwy 12. Luckily her boyfriend's mom was there and called me and our friend who has the auto repair and towing business. I got there before the ambulance did (7 minutes total). I saved the phone call message on my cell for a long time (she got my voice mail because I was in a meeting) but was smart and called the main desk and had them call a coworker who got me and alerted me about the accident. She didn't drive or ride in a vehicle with anyone else driving for more than a year. I was the only chauffeur she trusted. The first time she tried to go with friends on a day trip to a town about an hour away, they got 15 minutes away from our town and she had them pull over and leave her at the crossroads post office and called me to come pick her up.

Amazingly none of these accidents were caused by her driving. And she is now over 30 years old and hasn't been in another accident since then. And she is a very good driver -- we even had her wait 6 months for her license so she could get experience driving in the winter weather.

I don't know . . . I can't think straight because I'm in the middle of trying to teach my first kid to drive. It's terrifying. Maybe I wish I'd known what a calm dad I had! He never yelled at me once while I was learning to drive--even with a stick shift!

I wish I knew that you can not use different types of tires on your car because of uneven wear , and that the tires need to be rotated for even wear, and that the tires need the proper air pressure to keep them in good shape. My neglect of the tires on my car caused them to wear out prematurely. Now I take excellent care of my tires!

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About Me

Carmen Staicer is a whirlwind of energy and execution, who never sleeps and drinks way too much coffee. She works from home as Social Media Programs Manager for SheKnows, and is the mom to six kids, most of whom play instruments, sing or dance and all of whom are much smarter than she will ever be. In other words, her house is never ever quiet or still. A concentration of asthma, food allergies, spectrum disorders and learning disabilities means that she spends an awful lot of time second guessing herself and Dr. Googling, as well as learning to cook everything the family might like to eat. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, boxing (she has her Black Belt in Muay Thai), sleeping, exploring coffee shops, photography, ballet class and cooking. She excels in being a smart mouth and has her major in sarcasm, with a dual minor in BS studies and avoiding laundry.